Funny you mention that switch, I think that is what I have decided on for my next round. I realized as the weights got heavier, the squats were starting to wear me out and at 46 yrs old I need more time to recover. Not to mention my knees were starting to get a little sore as well, they are pretty chewed up to begin with. I had never done a full 5x5 routine before this, most times it was more 3x5 with the max weight, a full 5x5 at max weight adds a lot more strain on the body.

I should be starting this next round Saturday or Sunday, after a week off I think I will start lower than those previous maxes, say drop 20% off and go up from there.

The advantage to following the total rep guidelines of the table is that it ensures you get enough reps to have a positive training effect without doing more reps than necessary thus needlessly tiring yourself.

By following these rep guidelines and other training principles Iíve found Iíve been able to jumpstart my Squats and Deadlifts which were stagnant for some time at around 265 lbs. and 315 lbs. respectively until last March, and are now both at 390 lbs. and still climbing.

Something else Iím religious about is that I never do Deadlifts for reps as IMO that is one of the best possible ways you can screw up your back. No rep after the first one, and often not even the first one (about 70% of realistic 1RM attempt failures are due to technique, 20% a sticking point and 10% mental), is going to be perfect. Instead I set a number of reps as a target based on prilepinís table and do a series of singles.

Iím a stoneís throw away from 52 so believe me Iíve researched all the best ways I can find achieve the optimal balance between muscle and or strength gains and fatigue management. Myo-reps is another very effective method but geared more toward bodybuilding.

Thanks for those links, according to the calculator, my max for DL is 394 and squat is 343. I'd like to think because I am doing sets of 5 at the weights I put into the calculator my squat max might even be a little higher as I usually have energy left over after the first 3 sets, it is the last 2 that drain me.

If you are leaving something in the tank your 1RM may be more. Also calculators like that tend to be more accurate the closer to 1 you plug in for the number of reps. 5 and below usually give a pretty good estimate but once your rep count gets up into the 6-10 range the estimates become progressively more problematic.